Look Behind the Veil: What Is Actually ‘Obscure’ About Luis Buñuel’s film, That Obscure Object of Desire? (Cet obscur objet du désir, F, ES 1977)

This paper analyzes Luis Buñuel’s last feature film on the background of Sigmund Freud’s conception of the fetish. In doing so, the specifically visual aspect of the fetish is discussed in the context of the pleasure of looking in cinema. With a methodological sideways glance at Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo - as well as a critical résumé of Laura Mulvey's feminist film theory - it is elaborated that the fetish is made to appear on the screen: namely, as an "obscure object" that arouses curiosity and passion alike. Analogously, it is shown that the passion of the man and the woman in Buñuel’s film is ignited solely because their encounter fails.